Mountainside United

Mountainside United

Mountainside United has been gathering in Montreal since the 1800s, built from four congregations that survived growth, fire, relocation, and reunion before finding a shared name in 2005. They come out of the Methodist and Presbyterian traditions, pulled together under the United Church of Canada over the course of the twentieth century. The name Mountainside United landed in 2005, grounded in where they sit in Westmount and who they've become together.

They meet now at McGill's Birks Chapel, a multicultural community where Filipino and Western worship traditions sit together naturally, not as a statement but as just how they are. Students show up looking for a spiritual home and tend to stay. The choir is serious. The soloists are serious. Concert-level music shows up throughout the liturgical year like it's expected, because it is.

The JS Project

Journey Society came in to solve a specific problem: the sermons weren't traveling. The community was already streaming, but there was no podcast, no way for members outside the pews to catch a Sunday they missed, no bilingual option for a congregation that prays in more than one language.

So we built one. English and Filipino, recorded live each Sunday off the existing audio setup, processed against a simple template that opens with a musical greeting before moving into the sermon. Once it's processed it goes straight to the hosting system and pushes automatically to directories around the world.

A Low Barrier Approach

The pastor doesn't do anything extra. Production takes under an hour. The whole thing costs almost nothing to run. That low-barrier philosophy was the point. Most churches aren't avoiding digital ministry because they don't want it. They're avoiding it because nobody has time and the budget isn't there. This project was built to prove that neither of those things has to be a dealbreaker.

Project Status

The numbers backed it up. Over 1,000 streams a week. Under $100 spent on marketing. Around 5% of listeners finding their way to the church podcast microsite. For a congregation this size, that's real reach.

Technology

• Riverside FM

• Live Sermon Audio Capture

• Transmitter FM